VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE STUDIES ---***--- BẠCH THỊ HOÀNG YẾN A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING VIDEO IN TEACHING LISTENING FOR NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG VIDEO TRONG DẠY NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN TIẾNG ANH KHÔNG CHUYÊN TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 HANOI, APRIL 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE STUDIES ---*****--- BẠCH THỊ HOÀNG YẾN A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING VIDEO IN TEACHING LISTENING FOR NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG VIDEO TRONG DẠY NGHE CHO SINH VIÊN TIẾNG ANH KHÔNG CHUYÊN TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Mr. Lê Thế Nghiệp, MA.
HANOI, APRIL 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABREVIATIONS iv LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Rationale of the study 1 2. Aims of the study 2 4. Scope of the study 2 5.
Methods of the study 3 6. Design of the study 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4 Chapter one Literature review 4 1. What is Listening Comprehension? 4 1. Listening Comprehension Process 4 1.
The Roles of Listening in Language Teaching and Learning 6 1. To Acquire Language 6 1. To Develop Speaking Skill 6 1. To be the final goal of learning a language 8 1.
The Benefits of Using Video in Teaching Listening 9 1. Video Generating Interest, Motivation and Concentration in Listening 9 1. Video Lowering Anxiety in Listening 10 1. Video Helping Learners Study Non-verbal Aspects of Communication 11 1.
Video Providing the Background of Communication 11 1. Aspects of Video That Can Be Improved Through Video 12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Comprehension 13 Chapter two The Survey 15 2. The Context of The Study 15 2.
The Data Collection Procedures 16 2. The Use of Video in the English Lessons 17 2. The Questionnaire and the Tests 17 2. Data Analysis and Discussion 18 2.
Factors That Cause Difficulties in Learning Listening 18 2. Students’ Attitude towards Video Lessons 19 2. Students’ Manner of Watching Video Films 19 2. Students’ Favorite Activities While Watching Video Films 20 2.
Students’ Attitude towards the Effectiveness of Video in Listening Lessons 21 2. Some Negative Results of Using Video in Teaching Listening 23 2. Tests’ Result Analysis 24 2. Analysis of the Pre-Test 24 2.
Analysis of the Post-Test 26 2. Discussion of the Findings 28 2. Problems 29 Chapter three Implications in Using Video in Teaching Listening 31 3. Techniques of Teaching Listening Skill with Video 31 3.
Selecting Video Materials 31 3. Choosing video materials carefully 31 3. Choosing video materials according to the linguistic content of students’ course book. Some Techniques for Using Video 32 3.
Activities designed From Video 34 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Bubble-Filling and Event- Linking 34 3. Who Said What? 36 PART C: CONCLUSION 37 1. Summary of the Study 37 2.
Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study 37 REFERENCES APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1 : Survey Questionnaire for Teachers I APPENDIX 2 : Survey Questionnaire for Students II LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv LIST OF ABREVIATIONS ESP : English for Specific Purposes GE : General English IT : Information Technology N : Number PDU : Phuong Dong University SD : Standard Deviation T/F : True/ False LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com v LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Tables: Table 1: Students’ favorite activities while watching video films 17 Table 2: The effectiveness of video in teaching listening skill 18 Table 3: Some negative results of using video in teaching listening 19 Charts: Chart 1: Students’ difficulties in learning listening 15 Chart 2: Students’ attitude towards video lessons 16 Chart 3: Students’ manner of watching video films 16 Chart 4: Raw marks in listening pre-test 21 Chart 5: Raw marks in listening post-test 23 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY In Vietnam in recent year English has been widely used as a means of communication in many fields of life as in economy, science, education, culture and so on. The number of English learners who wish to use English to communicate successfully has been increasing rapidly. As a result, teaching and learning English has been paid more attention to and English becomes a compulsory subject in colleges and universities.
Being aware of the importance of the language many students want to be successful listeners and speakers. Having been a teacher of English at Phuong Dong University (PDU) for nearly six years, I have found out that among the four skills listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening and speaking seem to be the most challenging to students. In many listening and speaking classes beside the students who manage to understand the recorded materials or try to express their ideas, I also see tired faces of those who struggle to follow the lesson. Some students even said: “Teacher, I feel sleepy with the listening” or “Teacher, I‟m tired of listening, ”.
I felt really sad and showed this situation to other experienced teachers and found out that this is a common problem among non-major students of English. This also puzzled many other teachers. Most of them advised me that I should be patient and let students get used to with the subject themselves gradually. However, in my opinion, it is the role of teachers who should make a great deal of effort to create and maintain the students‟ interest in the lessons and avoid boredom.
It is also because as teachers “we want, and indeed we are expected, to produce students who can comprehend accurately and speak with confidence” (Hill, B. From that point of view, I think it is so important to help students have the feeling of interest and enjoyment in the process of listening. To hold student‟s interest, there are some ways such as: using games, songs, stories, flash cards, pictures, overhead projector transparency, films, video, television and so on. Among these, I think video seems to be the most effective and helpful in developing aural skill as Stemplesky, S & Tomalin, B (1990: 3) argue: “Children and adults feel their interest quicker when language is experienced in a lively way through television and video.
This combination of moving pictures and sound can present language more comprehensively than any other teaching medium. That is the reason why I chose video as the LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com means to do an experimental research on how to interest students in listening lessons. The thesis goes as: “A study on the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening for non-major English students at Phuong Dong University” 2. HYPOTHESIS This study was designed to test the following hypothesis: Video can be used as a motivator to generate students‟ interest and maintain their concentration in listening to English as well as to improve both their top-down skills (clarifying context, inferring ideas, identifying topics) and bottom-up listening skills (recognizing vocabulary, identifying sentence stress and intonation), thus enhancing their listening comprehension.
AIMS OF THE STUDY The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening to non-major students so that some suggestions of how to use video in teaching listening skills in the classroom can be given to help students improve these skills. The specific aims are as follows: investigating the students‟ attitudes towards listening through video. finding out the effectiveness of using video in teaching listening suggesting some techniques of using video in teaching listening in the classroom. SCOPE OF THE STUDY In this study, at first the researcher intended to examine how effective video is to listening and speaking skills.
However, due to the limitation of time and page number of a minor thesis, the researcher could only conduct a survey on the using of video in teaching listening to find out how to improve students‟ listening skills through video. The survey was conducted on first-year students and the students are from two classes at the same level. The video lessons were experimented for the period of 15 weeks (one term) with the purpose of practicing the listening skills for students through video. They were used at the end of LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com the lesson as an extra activity.
Finally, the study focused on the use of video language teaching materials made for the classroom without taking care of other kinds of categories such as television programs, specialist films or self-made video films. The video materials were taken from the Oxford English Video – Lifetime, Level 1 by Tom Hutchinson (1999) and from the website http://www. METHODS OF THE STUDY In order to achieve the above aims, the qualitative method was used and the data for analysis in the study were collected from the different resources: Survey questionnaires were designed for collecting data for analysis from 50 students of two elementary level classes at PDU (these students had access to video in class). Interviews: the researcher also interviewed some students to double check the information gained from the questionnaires.
However, the interviews were sometimes applied if the author find that the answers of respondents were not clear enough. Tests for students: the aim of the tests is to find out what progress videos help students to make in their listening skills. The tests were delivered to students at the beginning and at the end of the second term. DESIGN OF THE STUDY The paper is designed with three parts as follows: Part A, “Introduction”, presents the rationale of choosing the topic, the aim of the study, the scope of the study and the methods for the fulfillment of the study.
Part B, “Development”, is divided into three chapters: Chapter one presents some theoretical backgrounds that are relevant to the research topic such as the listening processes, the role of listening, the benefits of using video in language classes, aspects of listening that can be improved through video. Chapter two investigates the situation of using video at PDU. This chapter also focuses on the data collection, findings and discussion to find out the students‟ point of view about using video in listening lessons. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Chapter three emphasizes the implication of the study as well as some suggestions for using video to improve listening skills to the students at PDU.
Part C, “Conclusion”, summarizes the key issues in the study, points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for further study. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPEMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. What is listening comprehension? It is widely believed that listening is a major component in language learning and teaching and in recent year the language teaching profession has placed a great emphasis on listening comprehension. There have been numerous definitions of listening, which present different views of scholars towards the concept.
According to Gary Buck (2001), “listening comprehension is an active process of constructing meaning and this is done by applying knowledge to incoming sound.” Listening is also defined “as an active process during which the listener constructs meaning from oral input” (Bentley & Bacon, 1996: 3 ). That is to say in order to be successful listener, the first thing anyone must have is the ability to absorb the pieces of information from the speaker by listening.